Orlando-based Dynetech Corp., the wealth-seminar business mired in bankruptcy reorganization and a state investigation in Texas, has already laid the groundwork for a new venture as a wealth-management firm.

Affiliates of the company, best known for its how-to-get-rich seminars and software, have been accused of deceptive trade practices by Texas regulators. But even as that state's attorney general moved to seize the assets of some Dynetech affiliates and bar them from operating there, a relatively new corporation controlled by Dynetech founder Laurence Pino received permission from the Texas Securities Board to operate as a registered investment-advisory firm.

The new corporate entity, Dynetech Capital Corp., has also received regulatory approval to manage people's investments in Florida and 17 other states, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Florida Office of Financial Regulation.

Pino insists Texas' attorney general is distorting the company's track record and focusing on dissatisfied seminar and software customers who constitute only a tiny fraction of the thousands of people served by Dynetech during the past decade.

"The outrageous and inaccurate Texas allegations are very damaging and hurtful indeed, even though they have been made and publicized without so much as a single evidentiary hearing," he wrote in an e-mail response to questions submitted in writing by the Orlando Sentinel.

For Pino and associates, Dynetech Capital would be just the latest in a long line of business ventures launched from his corporate base in downtown Orlando. Through the years, the group's stable of products and services has included small-business consulting, infomercial production, day-trading software and telemarketing support, as well as the how-to-get-rich seminars.

The Texas attorney general's lawsuit alleges that, among other things, various Dynetech Corp. affiliates made false refund promises and misleading claims about how easily people could learn to become rich by attending the companies' seminars, usually at a cost of about $4,000 a person.

A Dynetech Corp. spokesman blamed both the recession and the state of Texas lawsuit for driving the company and certain affiliates into Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month.

"It is our intention to vigorously contest the many erroneous and outright inaccurate statements made in the Texas assistant attorney general's complaint," the spokesman, Bud Brewer, said in an e-mail response to the Sentinel's questions.

Only days before filing its Chapter 11 reorganization, Dynetech Corp. and some of its other corporate units merged themselves into a Dynetech affiliate called Telligenix Corp. — one of the companies under investigation in Texas. And so it was Telligenix that on Oct. 8 filed Chapter 11 in federal bankruptcy court in Orlando.

"The consumer-seminar division offers a retail product line and has been hurt in the same way as the rest of the retail sector" by the nationwide recession, he wrote. "We're evaluating the future of this segment of our business."

According to the Texas attorney general, Telligenix/Dynetech has now agreed to cease doing business in Texas, as part of an effort by company officials to settle the state's lawsuit.

Dynetech Capital, meanwhile, is going forward as an investment-advisory firm, Brewer said. It is not tied to the Telligenix bankruptcy case, it is not included in the Texas lawsuit, and it has nothing to do with the seminar business, he wrote.

He said the new company's ownership and management structure is "separate and distinct" from that of Telligenix.

But state records and the Telligenix bankruptcy file indicate that Pino owns big stakes in both Dynetech Capital and the bankrupt Telligenix/Dynetech group. Pino Investments and Pino Financial Corp., which he owns, together control more than 34 million shares, or 88 percent, of the common stock in Telligenix, according to bankruptcy-court records. At the same time, Pino is a shareholder and director of Dynetech Capital, and entities controlled by him are listed as indirect owners, according to the company's financial-advisory application with the state of Florida.

Dynetech Capital's application with Florida regulators indicates that the company sees a future in managing the wealth of well-heeled individuals, pension plans, trusts and corporations. But Pino says that's not necessarily the case.

"Dynetech Capital is not intended to be involved in investment advisory work, which is not the only reason to obtain licensure," he wrote when asked about the applications the company has filed with Florida, Texas and the other states.

Pino did not elaborate on his plans for Dynetech Capital, saying only that, "Since the unwarranted and overreaching Texas regulatory action and our subsequent Chapter 11 filing, we have redirected our efforts towards stabilizing the business for the benefit of all stakeholders."

Pino is an entrepreneur well-known in Orlando business and social circles. He has helped lead economic-development groups; has contributed generously to colleges and philanthropic causes; and has written several books, including one with Craig McAllaster, dean of Rollins College's Crummer Graduate School of Business.

He formed Dynetech Corp. in 2000 when he combined his American Cash Flow seminar company with several other businesses. Its annual sales grew from $8 million that year to more than $175 million in 2004, which placed it on Inc. magazine's list of the country's 500 fastest-growing privately held companies. Pino was a state winner and a regional finalist for Ernst & Young's 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Pino once worked with Charles Givens, the late get-rich-quick investment guru who built a multimillion-dollar financial empire 20 years ago. Givens' empire collapsed into bankruptcy in the mid-1990s after a string of lawsuits and regulatory enforcement actions.

Pino himself was reprimanded by The Florida Bar two decades ago for mismanaging client funds. Brewer described the case as an isolated incident that involved "one client or business partner" of Pino's law practice at the time. Brewer said it should have no effect on Dynetech Capital's new status as a financial-advisory firm in Florida.

According to the state, Dynetech Capital should have disclosed Pino's Florida Bar reprimand in its financial-advisory application but did not do so.